Of all the boys we have this year, Long John is by far the friendliest. He loves to do jumpy uppy. He's happy to be held and cuddled. He's almost as friendly as Penguin was, last year.
I've no chance of rehoming him, because of his deformity. Today I found myself just looking at coops, and tryng to work out how I could fit a coop for him and two of the leghorn girls at the allotment.
I briefly wondered about trying to keep him with another cockerel in one big flock,
Or here. Maybe I could keep him here and he'd keep the old girls in check. He might not be noisy.
It's silly. I don't want to breed leghorn. If I'd wanted to keep a lightweight bird, I could have kept Pengy last year. And I didn't. And he was even friendlier than Long John..
Why has Long John got under my skin?
I put my emotions to one side, and thought about it. I guess it's partly because he's disabled, and he therefore reminds me of Lottie, the exchequer leghorn I lost to a fox about 3? years ago.
But its also because, this year, we will be keeping 2 leghorn girls at the allotment. We won't be breeding from them (not with a dual purpose cockerel, anyway), so they could be kept separate. If we had space. And a coop. I guess in the back of my mind this made me consider a little trio. Blondie, Sunshine, and Long John. It as the attraction of no necessary introductions to the big group. Keep them separate. Happy.
This wasn't an option last year when we hatched Pengy. We had only dual purpose girls, so there really wasn't a choice with him. If I'm honest with myself, there isn't really a choice with Long John, it's all just (chicken) pie in the sky.
Maybe he'll turn out to be a teenage thug and I'll be glad to be rid of him.
In the meantime, he continues to be first to run up for jumpy uppy, and I keep trying to work out the best ways to keep my options open.
I won't mention any of this to Miss Tween.
